Fern

by Greenwood, Leigh

  "Unless you mean to talk to yourself, there's little else to listen to. After Boston and New York, you'll find us very short of newsworthy events." They had reached the hotel desk. "This is Frank Turner, owner of the Cottage."

  Frank nodded anxiously.

  "I'd like a room," Madison said, "the best you have. As good as that is," he added, looking around the lobby with distaste.

  "I've already reserved a room for you," George said.

  "Will I be awakened in the middle of the night by a crying nephew?"

  "Only by roistering cowhands or bawling longhorns," George said as he led the way to a narrow hallway that ran the length of the Cottage. "Rose and I stay at a house in town. She isn't up to keeping track of an almost four-year-old in a hotel. She's waiting in your room. She wants to meet you." A particularly satisfied smile settled itself on George's face. "She likes to protect me. She's never sure when someone, especially one of my brothers, will try to take advantage of my better nature."

  "She doesn't know the Randolphs very well, does she?" Madison laughed, mirthlessly. "We don't have a better nature."

  "Actually she knows us rather better than you would think." George knocked before he opened the door.

  Madison entered to find a small woman sitting very erect in a chair by the window. His eyes grew wide when she rose to meet him. George's wife was very pregnant.

  "What do you mean dragging your wife all over this benighted wilderness when she's . . . she's . . . "

  "Going to have a baby," Rose finished for him, her gaze going from brother to brother. "George told me I'd recognize you at once, but I never thought you'd look almost as much alike as the twins."

  Madison pulled himself together. He hadn't been in Abilene for half an hour, and already he'd been caught off guard twice. Oddly enough, the woman in pants hadn't bothered him at all. Surprisingly, his only reaction had been a kind of wry amusement and admiration for someone with the courage to go her own way in the face of convention.

  She certainly was an unusual looking female. She wore her hair pinned up under a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned hat. Her flannel shirt, butternut pants, and high-heeled boots were indistinguishable from those worn by the dozens of cowhands which must be holding cattle on the countryside.

  She was a tall girl, bigger boned than most, but she had covered the telltale aspects of her figure with a loose sheepskin vest. It must have taken years outdoors on horseback to give her that tanned complexion and swaggering walk. Only the most discerning eye would have guessed she had entered the world as Fern rather than Ferdinand.

  She wasn't at all the kind of female he was used to, yet he found himself wondering what could have turned her into such a rebel. It couldn't have been anything insignificant. If anybody knew that, he did.

  Realizing he'd been standing in front of Rose with his mind in a fog, Madison muttered a hurried apology. "I'm terribly sorry to be so rude, but if you've been married to George long enough to get that way, you know none of us has any manners."

  "I've been married to George long enough to get this way twice," Rose answered forthrightly, "and I find the endless capacity of the Randolph men to adapt and change continues to surprise me."

  "A diplomat," Madison remarked. "I guess she'd have to be to survive."

  George gave his wife a look that caused her to sputter with laughter.

  "Have I said something wrong?" Madison asked. He hated it when people laughed at him. It made him feel stupid. His father used to do that when he wanted to punish him.

  "Remember to ask Monty about her first two days on the ranch," George said.

  Madison didn't know anything about women having babies, but he guessed Rose shouldn't be standing. Boston matrons went to bed the minute they learned they were pregnant and didn't get up until they were fully recovered. Rose looked like she was about to pop, and she had been trailing around after George through this trackless wilderness.

  "Have a seat," Madison said, and dropped into a chair, hoping Rose would do the same.

  She did.

  "How did you talk George into letting you come on such a long trip?" he asked. It wasn't the question to ask a woman he'd just met, not even his sister-in-law, but he wanted to know.

  "I didn't tell him," Rose answered. "He wasn't pleased when he found out. He still hasn't forgiven me. I practically had to tie him up to keep him from turning around and taking me right back home."

  For some reason, the picture of this tiny woman tying up her hulking husband amused Madison. Probably because he'd wanted to do the same thing when they were boys and George's size and strength gave him an insurmountable advantage when they wrestled.

  "I didn't take her back because she agreed to rest as much as possible," George explained. "That's why she's waiting here rather than meeting you at the train as she wanted." He helped his wife to her feet. "Now we'll leave you to get settled. I'll come back in an hour. We'll have dinner after we've seen Hen."

  Chapter Two

  "He came in on the afternoon train," Fern told her father as she set his dinner before him. Her agitation caused her voice to be too high. "I should have known they wouldn't settle for a local lawyer."

  Baker Sproull started eating without waiting for his daughter. "I heard he hasn't seen his family in years," he said, his mouth full. "Maybe he doesn't care about his brother."

  "I don't know about that," Fern said as she set the rest of her father's meal on the table, "but he's here to get his brother off. You can see it in his eyes."

  Black eyes, Fern remembered, eyes as dark as night and as deep as never. His handsome face had remained calm. In fact, he looked vaguely surprised she had had the nerve to speak to him. But only vaguely, as though nothing could throw him completely off stride, certainly no one as inconsequential as Fern Sproull.

  She'd teach him to ignore her. She hadn't worked her whole life to win the respect of the male community to let some slick-talking eastern lawyer ooze into town and ruin it for her.

  He probably thinks everybody in Kansas sleeps on the ground and talks to cows more than people.

  Well, let him. It would make it all the better when she showed him how wrong he was.

  "What's he like?" her father asked.

  Like the man's appearance was more important than what he was here to do. But then her father had never gotten upset over Troy's death. He said Troy was asking for it, if it hadn't been Hen Randolph, it would have been somebody else.

  "He's practically the double of George Randolph," Fern told her father as she served a plate for herself, "but not as big-boned. Even if he wasn't the spitting image of his brother, you couldn't miss him. He dresses like nobody you ever saw. I swear there wasn't any dust on his boots, even after walking from the train. Probably isn't any dust in Kansas brave enough to land on him.

  "He wore a plain black suit, but you'd never believe how it fit. It looked like someone made it just for him. I swear I thought his collar would choke him. It was up to his chin and stiff as a board. He won't find anybody in Abilene to do his collars that way. Or his shirts. You could practically hear it pop when he moved. And his hair is as black as his eyes, thick and wavy. He's tall, but he seems even taller because he looks down at you like some eagle. He'll make a powerful impression when he stands up to talk."

  "You shouldn't have been hanging around eavesdropping on his conversation," her father said.

  "I didn't eavesdrop. I walked right up to him and told him I meant to see his brother hang." She poured some coffee into a chipped mug, laced it with a generous helping of thick cream, walked over to her place at the table, and sat down.

  "You shouldn't have done that," her father said, looking up from his plate long enough to indicate his empty coffee cup. "What's he going to think of you?"

  "I don't care," Fern replied, setting her meal down and going to refill her father's cup. "I wanted him to know right from the start he wasn't going to get his brother off just because he's from Boston."

  "He mi
ght," her father said. As soon as she set the coffee down, he handed her his empty plate. "There's not many folks around here that would hang Hen if the railroad was against it. You know he's connected with the railroad, don't you?"

  Fern walked back to the stove where she ladled more chicken and dumplings into her father's plate. "You can't mean people would knuckle under to him just because of the railroad," she asked, realizing even as she spoke what a powerful ally the Randolphs had on their side.

  "I didn't say they would. Just said they might. Besides, this is a whole lot of trouble for a no-account like Troy. Don't hardly seem worth it."

  Fern set her father's plate in front of him and sat down to eat her dinner. "You didn't feel that way last year when our cows started dying from Texas fever."

  "And I won't if they start dying again, but I expect this'll be the end of it. They'll most likely go to Ellsworth or Newton next year." He seemed to lose interest in the conversation. "Cut me a slice of cake before you get settled," he said.

  "That's not the point," Fern said over her shoulder as she got up and walked over to the cake keep.

  "Yes, it is," her father contradicted. "Nobody but a born fool like Troy would get into a fight with Hen Randolph, not knowing he's got a bad temper and a fast gun. Insulting his pa was bound to make him mad as fire."

  "But to kill Troy," Fern said, coming to the table with a thick slice of seven layer cake with plum preserves spread between the layers.

  "I don't hold with shooting people, but I don't hold with insulting their parents, either." Baker pushed his plate aside, handed Fern his empty coffee cup, and reached for the cake. "Troy was a cocky, loudmouthed, bullying son-of-a-bitch. None too honest either. I never would have let him work for me if he hadn't been kin."

  Fern returned to the table with her father's coffee. She sat down and took a sip of her own, but it was cold, so she got up to throw it out and get some more.

  "How many times have I told you about wasting good cream in coffee and then throwing it away," Baker complained as he pushed away from the table. "I could make a couple of dollars a week with what you waste."

  He got up and went to sit outside where it was cool. Fern was left to eat her meal alone.

  She didn't care what her father said. Killing wasn't right. No more than it was right for Texans to bring diseased cattle into Kansas when it was against the law, killing off the farmers' expensive blooded cattle, trampling their crops, eating their hay, and drinking their water.

  And it wasn't right for a self-important tenderfoot to come slithering into town expecting to evade the law just because he had a smooth tongue, a big job with the railroad, and dressed like somebody out of a Sears & Roebuck catalog.

  If he thought having a shatteringly handsome face was going to make any difference, he was sadly mistaken. Kansas women appreciated a good-looking man, but they wouldn't make fools of themselves over him.

  Fern absently-mindedly smoothed her long, dark-blond hair. Troy had tried to get her to cut it. He said it would ruin her throw if it came down while she was roping a steer. Her eyes sought the picture of her mother sitting on the table next to her father's chair. In a way she couldn't explain, her hair made her feel more feminine. She couldn't give up this one link, weak as it was, to the mother she couldn't remember.

  * * * * *

  "Hen's not one to talk very much," George said to Madison.

  They were headed toward the jail. Madison was trying to think of this case as nothing more than a legal problem to be sorted out with calm good sense, but the closer they came to the jail, the more insistent the refrain that rang his head.

  This is the boy you abandoned.

  No one had ever said those words to him. Still, he couldn't free himself from the silent accusation. It lurked somewhere just beyond the edge of awareness, always ready to spring into his conscious thoughts in an unguarded moment.

  "He never did talk much," Madison replied. "Even Ma had trouble getting more than two consecutive sentences out of him."

  But as he walked along the noisy boardwalk, dodging cowhands and farmers headed for the beckoning lights of the several saloons that lined the street, he knew his brothers would never understand why he left. Nothing would absolve him in their eyes.

  "Maybe you'd better give me a quick run down on what happened," Madison said.

  "There's not much to tell. Hen went out riding alone, south towards Newton. He didn't go anywhere in particular, just rode until he felt like turning around. When he got back to town, Hickok arrested him for murdering Troy Sproull."

  "Sproull? Is he any relation to that female who practically attacked us?"

  "Her cousin."

  Now he understood why she was so angry. She probably thought he had come to cheat the gallows. He had, but he intended to prove the gallows had no claim to Hen. "What kind of evidence do they have?"

  "A man named Dave Bunch says he saw Hen riding toward the deserted Connor place. He says he recognized Hen's horse. When he heard a shot a few minutes later, he turned back to see if Hen needed any help. Troy was dead when he got there, and Hen was nowhere in sight."

  Madison felt a twinge of uneasiness. Thousands of men had been hanged on less solid evidence. He had to assume Dave Bunch was lying or mistaken.

  "Anything else?"

  "Hen and Troy got into a fight the night before over something Troy said. Hen threatened to kill him if he said it again."

  "What could he have said to cause Hen to get that mad?"

  "It was about Pa."

  Of all the memories Madison wanted to put behind him, those of his father came first.

  "What has the old bastard done now? I was half hoping some Yankee would shoot him."

  "One did. He was killed in Georgia."

  Oh hell, he hadn't meant it. He hated the old man, but he didn't really want him dead. Not that way.

  He had stayed away all those years, refusing to make any contact with George, for fear the old bastard would come after him. He was no longer a helpless youngster, but some parts of his life were just too painful to be opened up again.

  "If Pa's dead, what could Troy Sproull have said to get Hen so riled?"

  "There's some story going around that Pa stole a Union payroll in Virginia. I don't know how Troy got hold of it, but he started taunting Hen about Pa being a thief."

  "Did Pa steal it?"

  "I don't know. I never saw him after I left to sign up."

  Madison would never forget that day. No sooner had William Henry Randolph's two oldest boys disappeared than he had announced that he was going to volunteer, too. He didn't seem to care that he was abandoning his family, that his wife was devastated, or that his five youngest sons were paralyzed with shock. He just left.

  Their mother never recovered.

  "Hen beat up Troy," George said. "Hen told him Pa was a liar, a cheat, and probably a thief as well, but nobody had the right to call him that but his own sons."

  "That was all? Even in Kansas, you need more reason than that to kill a man."

  "Everybody thought it was enough when Troy turned up dead with Dave saying he all but saw Hen pull the trigger. We've got to stop in here."

  George turned into the Alamo Saloon.

  "What for?" Madison asked.

  "You seldom find the marshal anywhere else."

  Marshal Wild Bill Hickok, dressed in fringed buckskins, his shoulder-length black hair parted in the middle, and a pair of pearl-handled guns at his waist, sat at one of the several tables in the saloon engrossed in a card game. He looked none too pleased at being interrupted.

  "Haven't you talked to that boy enough?" Hickok asked, when George told him he wanted to see his brother. "Can't have much more to say."

  "This is my brother, Madison," George told the marshal. "He's come to handle Hen's defense."

  "Don't look like it'll do much good as long as Dave Bunch sticks to his story."

  Madison could feel his irritation growing at this cocky man who s
eemed to have such contempt for him and his family. He had seen many men of small character corrupted by power. He imagined Abilene's marshal was just another one.

  "We'd like to see him anyway," George said.

  "Suit yourself," Hickok said, reaching for the keys. Much to Madison's surprise, he handed them to George. "But he ain't said boo to nobody for more than a week."

  Once they were outside, Madison asked, "Does he give everybody the keys?"

  "It saves him breaking up the game," George said.

  Either Hickok respected George too much to think he'd help Hen escape, despised him too much to think he would succeed, or didn't care. Madison decided to take a little time to get to know Marshal Hickok.

  The jail was a small, frame building. Abilene had appointed its first marshal the previous year, and so far they hadn't needed anything else.

  Hen's cell was really a room with bars on the door. A bed, table, chairs, and even a lamp for reading made it more comfortable than a conventional jail. Hen was lying on the bed when George opened the door. He didn't move except to turn his head so he could focus his gaze on the man standing behind George.

  His fixed look intensified as recognition set in, and Madison could see the muscles in Hen's body draw into tight knots. Hen sat up.

  "What the Hell are you doing here?" he demanded. His voice, barely above a whisper, was tight with rage.

  Several rejoinders hovered on Madison's tongue. Having been a Virginian at Harvard during the war, he had survived too many confrontations not to be able to turn them off with a light remark, a biting retort, or a question of his own. That would have told both Hen and George they couldn't reach him, couldn't hurt him.

  But he hadn't traveled all the way from Boston to hide behind subterfuges. In the last several hours, many things he thought dead or buried had reared their ugly heads, their vigor undiminished by the passing of so many years. He had thought himself hardened against emotion, shielded against accusation and innuendo. But he was discovering that where his family was concerned he was as vulnerable as he had been ten years ago.